Isn’t this why we all love Mumbai?

A BEST driver and a conductor went beyond the call of duty and waited 10 minutes for a woman passenger they dropped in the deserted Aarey Colony till she boarded an autorickshaw because she was alone and it was 1.30 am.

So touched was the 25-year-old woman, Mantasha Shaikh, by the gesture that she took to Twitter to hail Prashant Mayekar and Raj Dinkar, saying that their selfless act made her “fall in love with the city all over again”. “This is the reason ilove #Mumbai I would like to thanks #Best Bus driver of 398 ltd. Who dropped me at 1.30 am at a deserted bus stop and asked me if someone is there to pick me up. To which i replied no. He made the entire bus wait until i got the auto,” she wrote.

This is the reason i love #Mumbai I would like to thanks #Best Bus driver of 398 ltd. Who dropped me at 1.30 am a… https://t.co/RXYfxlOCJj

The post was retweeted close to 2,000 times and garnered over 5,000 likes. At a time when safety of women is under the biggest threat given the number of crimes being reported every day and the calling out of sexual harassment and abuses, the incident somewhat offers a saving grace.

A resident of Royal Palms in Aarey, Shaikh had gone to a relative’s place on Tuesday evening and lost track of time. She boarded the BEST bus from Sakinaka and by the time she got down at Aarey Colony, it was 1.30 am.

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With her husband out of the city, she knew that she had to make the journey back home alone and was dreading the prospect of waiting for the auto-rickshaw alone on the deserted, dark stretch when Mayekar (driver) and Dinkar (conductor) asked her if someone was coming to pick her up. When she replied that she would be taking an auto-rickshaw, they waited with her for 10 minutes till she found an auto-rickshaw.

They even stayed put till the auto started moving, ensuring that it headed for the right direction and didn’t take the woman on a wrong route.

BEST driver Prashant Mayekar (left) and conductor Raj Dinkar; (R) The tweet praising the BEST driver and conductor

Speaking to Mirror, she said, “That small gesture for them made a big difference to me. I felt that even if my family was not around, Mumbai will be looking out for me. It made me fall in love with the city all over again.”

Dinkar, 34, who has been working for BEST for 10 years and is regularly deputed on the last bus of the day, said that he only followed what he was taught during his training period.

“During my training, we were provided with a set of guidelines on how to make female passengers, elderly persons and children feel safe and comfortable during the ride. The safety of women passengers is paramount to us. Usually, women or elderly people are the last to get to off our buses. We are extra careful when they take a drop at an isolated place like Aarey Colony,” Dinkar told Mirror.

Driver Mayekar, 45, who has been with BEST for over 12 years, offered a noble insight into his gesture. “During the day, we are busy fighting traffic to meet the time schedule allotted to us. It’s only fitting that we take some efforts to do something extra for passengers at the end of the day,” he said.

He added that the roads being relatively empty and no rush to stick to schedule, the drivers of the last bus always go the extra mile. “This can be in the form of dropping the passengers a little further at a safe place where they can get rickshaws easily. Sometimes, we drop them in front of police stations. We often do this for physically challenged people,” Mayekar added.

If only, drivers of other transport services, especially App-based cab aggregators who are often accused of harassing women passengers, had shared the same thought. A month ago, an advertising professional registered a complaint against an Uber driver who allegedly left her stranded in the middle of Aarey forest at night. While walking in the dark, she tripped and fell into a pothole, injuring herself. She approached the police on Twitter, who immediately got in touch with her and registered a noncognizable offence against the driver.

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